


Valet

by wilkiecollins



Category: Versailles (TV 2015)
Genre: M/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-08-09 11:18:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7799758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wilkiecollins/pseuds/wilkiecollins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis is thoroughly delighted with Philippe's first decree of court etiquette.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Valet

As Philippe stood at the foot of his brother's bed he honestly had no idea whatsoever how the King was going to respond.

Louis, generally, had always been infuriatingly pleasant upon waking. Philippe, on the other hand, as the dark to his brother's light, the moon to his sun, was predictably a night owl. As children Philippe would clutch his bed clothes and whine and complain, crawling through the morning as his brain struggled to awaken. But Louis would always wake with a soft, sleepy smile, as if to greet the day, as if he were delighted to have the opportunity to once again be himself, and experience the world. Typical. Absolutely typical. And deeply annoying.

On the flip side, however, there was a limit to the King's morning happiness, and Philippe felt he may have found it by parading the entire court through his bedroom to watch him dress.

Philippe was relieved, then, to see the quirk of a smile at his brother's lips as the process methodically unrolled in a carefully choreographed performance, written and directed by Philippe. Having had his own strings pulled for the entire duration of his existence, the mere opportunity to just give one string a tiny tug was far more delicious than he was anticipating. He knew the semblance of power his brother was giving him was just that, a mere semblance designed to placate him, but regardless, watching his brother dress before the nation was really rather good fun.

Philippe, as any good director would, interjected and tugged and prodded, readjusting a ribbon here, smoothing a strand of hair there. He dried his brother's hands himself, and it was he who dabbed scent upon Louis's pale throat. All the time his brother's eyes were not on the waiting, adoring crowd, but on Philippe. He tracked him, and if anything, his amusement only increased. Philippe could only imagine how delighted the King was to have Philippe finally obey him, yet do it in the most irritating possible way. Philippe did not quite know whether he was relieved or annoyed at his brother's amiability. Maybe a small part of him wanted to see a glimmer of his own morning irritation in the King's eyes. Maybe he wanted to prove that obeying his rule could be a double-edged sword. 

Regardless, Philippe was never averse to playing dress up, and the King of France made a fine doll to play with.

Louis stopped him at multiple points that day to commend him on his genius.

"They will be reminded each and every morning that I am their role model, their every aspiration. Even before breakfast, they will know their place," he smiled, cupping Philippe's cheek in his warm hand. 

"You just enjoy performing for them, brother," Philippe replied, though could not deny that he leant into Louis's touch. "If you were not a King you would be a terrific actor."

"And now I get to be both," Louis grinned, and dropped a kiss to Philippe's cheek.

"A voyeur's dream," Philippe sighed, rolling his eyes to the Heavens. Louis laughed a low, lilting laugh.

"Only for the right audience."

\---

Philippe was reading in his chambers when Bontemps appeared at his door.

"The King wishes to see you," he said, in a voice so familiar it may as well have been Philippe's own. Philippe marvelled at the hour, checking the watch strung with fine chain to his pocket.

"I'm afraid at this hour Milton needs me more," he said, waving his book pointedly in the air, as though they were any point arguing with Bontemps. He knew the man would drag someone from the bowels of Hades if his King demanded their audience. Stubbornness had never been presented in such a gentlemanly package.

When he arrived in Louis's room, the King was in very much the same place he had been that morning. He faced the bed, with his back to his brother, and eight valets standing to attention around him, armed with props and tools of various configurations.

"Are you rehearsing for the morning? How very thorough of you," Philippe commented, though something about the situation made him nervous. Philippe never liked surprises, and luckily, the swiftness of his mind meant that surprises were rare. Louis was his exception. Louis was nigh impossible to predict.

The King frowned as he performed a perfect turn on his heel to face the Duke. "No, think of this more as my second act," he said, a small, enigmatic smile dancing infuriatingly across pink lips. "If my dressing is to be a performance, then my undressing must be its counter," he explained. "All the greatest narratives have a counter. The day and the night, the sun," he paused momentarily, his stare wide-eyed and pointed, glittering in the candlelight, "and the moon. Now sit."

Philippe felt a chair bumping the back of his legs and glanced back to see a valet pushing it beneath him. He took the seat more because his knees had stopped cooperating rather than as a result of any real desire to sit. "I see I have the finest seat in the house," he commented, and glanced around him briefly, wondering when the rest of the Dukes and Lords and Ladies and Marquesses would arrive, sleepy and wrapped in their own bedroom attire. There was a certain genius in it, he supposed. Target them in the morning before their defences had risen, and in the night once they had already fallen. People were vulnerable in their bedclothes. Louis's psychological mind games never ceased to impress him.

"This is the evening performance," Louis said significantly, "the standards are usually higher. Especially for such an intimate show."

"Intimate?" Philippe asked, but the tail end of the word dwindled in his mouth as the doors opened, and instead of the court pouring in, the valet's poured out. One by one, as practised and rehearsed as before, they left, and Philippe, watching in amazement, missed his brother shrugging his fine coat to the floor. He turned his head as he heard the soft thump of heavy, expensive fabric on heavy, expensive carpet, and through the disorientation he felt a momentary twinge of fear for such a fine garment - embroidery like that couldn't just be dropped to the _floor_ like a _rag_... But the thought left him as Louis's fine fingers worked the buttons of his waistcoat, from the top to the bottom, opening its folds and allowing it, too, to fall from his body. An inexplicable heat rose to Philippe's cheeks as he realised Louis's eyes were fixed upon him with an animal intensity.

"I am both impressed by and grateful for your contribution to the court, Philippe," Louis said, slowly, firmly, a regal announcement as he undid the cuffs of his frilled sleeves. "I know this has not been an easy time for you," he said, and Philippe heard the unspoken references - the Chevalier, the baby, the nightmares of war that he knew would never leave - "and yet you chose to dedicate your time and talents to the continued evolution of Versailles. You chose to work with me, when so many choose to work against me."

"I -" Philippe stuttered, because Louis was sliding his pure white shirt from his pure white shoulders, the material fluttering about his ankles and bearing the slender muscles of his arms and the dark dusting of hair across his chest. "All I have ever wanted is to work by your side. It is all I have been trying to do," he justified, though a part of him did not want to refer to the times where they had been in conflict, not in this moment of... intimacy? He did not know what this moment was. Philippe and Louis had grown up together as confident, unabashed boys, and nudity was never unusual or commented upon. They frequently met at each other's baths, for it meant the other could not easily escape. They swam naked together. Hurried each other's nude bodies out of bed. Once two men fucked the same woman there was very little preciousness over privacy. And yet there was a pointed, deliberate significance to Louis's slow shedding of clothing that made Philippe's mouth dry. The power of his blue gaze, his eyes dancing with light, was sending his heart into his throat. Philippe did not know what was happening, could not comprehend its significance or purpose, but he had long ago stopped trying to analyse his brother's motivations or actions. Instead, he let the performance bathe over him, as Louis walked to his table and removed his rings, one by one. 

"I realise that now," Louis said assuredly, and even as he stripped before his brother the voice was the same as he would use in any diplomatic meeting or negotiation. "I can only apologise that it has taken me so long to understand your intentions, and your worth," and Philippe's cynical mind wondered if the sincerity was part of the performance. "Throughout my life people on each and every side of me have been whispering in my ear that you seek to be King, but now I see that is not the case," Louis added, and Philippe cleared his throat as his brother kicked off his shoes, and removed the stockings from his feet. "You do not want to be the King. You want to be by the King's side."

"Always," Philippe murmured, his eyes bright in the glimmering candlelight filling the room. His skin was unbearably hot, and felt horribly tight, as Louis's fingers unfastened the front of his trousers, and slid them over his slim hips. There he was, nude in the golden light, and Philippe marvelled at how his brother could make nakedness look like a costume. An act that for so many would mean vulnerability and honesty for the King only looked like a display of tremendous power. Louis's cock was hard and red against his flat belly, and Philippe was reminded of the ferocity of his own erection when going into war, and wondered if the same feeling drove Louis's arousal. The feeling of domination. Of impending victory. 

"Tell me why," Louis said, and Philippe did not know if his voice was softer or he was struggling to hear him over the rushing of blood in his own ears. "Tell me why you wish to serve."

Philippe felt timid. He felt like the man he was before the war. The man who would bend willingly beneath the Chevalier's hands, and stare at him with wide eyes while sinking beneath his body. He did not feel like the man of rough hands and demanding hips he had become after the bloodshed. He felt nervous, and grateful, and yielding. 

"I love my country," he said, on autopilot, a phrase drummed into him from his youth as he watched the minute details of Louis walking to his basin to wash his face, his hands, slowly and deliberately.

"I am your country," Louis said, matter-of-fact.

"I love my home," Philippe specified, noting the strained edge to his voice, and the discomfort of his cock straining against the tight front of his breaches. He was aroused by the submission of being sat, and not being able to move until the King told him he could do so.

"I am your home," Louis replied, glancing at him with a glint in his eyes that Philippe found frankly, wonderfully terrifying. This was the voice of a man who won territories, built empires, and cradled the universe in the palm of his hand. Without clothing Philippe felt like he was finally seeing the full, unrestrained majesty of Louis, the sheer presence of him. It felt like staring at the sun.

"I love my God," Philippe said, and Louis's laugh was a lilting, sing-song sound.

"I am his vassal," Louis said, holding up his hands and shaking them free of the tiny water droplets that still clung to them. He wiped a hand down his bare chest and it glimmered in its wake, a shining trail. Philippe was lost in the thought of how Louis's body differed and mirrored his own. They had the same slightness to their hips, the same deep lines of muscle running to their groins. But Louis's body was more compact, whereas Philippe's was long and lean. Philippe's body hair was fine, his chest hairless. Louis's hair was dark and coarse and ran a trail from his chest to his stomach and nestled around his cock.

"I love men," he said, and he did not know whether he meant the people of France, or the soldiers he served before, or the magnificence of men in general - their hard lines and broad shoulders.

"I'm one of those, too," Louis smiled, and that's when Philippe realised that his brother was walking towards him. Philippe's senses were so suddenly heightened that he thought he could smell the King, and he let off a short, surprised huff of laughter.

"A man cannot be God, King, and state," Philippe scoffed, though his eyes were still wide and confused as his voice held a note of defiance. 

Louis was close enough now that Philippe could smell the faint sweat of his body, and the dewy precome beading at the head of his cock. Philippe felt his brother's hands in his hair, felt his dark gaze looking down upon him, daring him to defy him, and the force of him was the closest Philippe thought he would ever feel to the mightiness of God.

"I am no ordinary man," Louis murmured, and offered his hand for Philippe to kiss. Philippe leant in slowly, deliberately, then missed his hand altogether to place a kiss just above his right hipbone. 

"And no ordinary brother," Philippe said softly, looking up at his brother from below, their eyes fixed as Louis's fingers closed over the nape of his neck.

"More than that. Better than that," Louis agreed. "Stand."

Philippe obeyed, and his legs were even shakier than he thought they would be. In bare skin, without stockings and heels, Louis was almost a full two inches shorter than him, yet still radiated authority. 

"I can be King, God, state, actor, man, brother, lover... and valet," he smiled, and Philippe felt his brothers hands at his shirt, unlacing its loose fronting, and lifting it over his head.


End file.
